Miko:

I left Ananke’s home, proceeding back down the steps feeling enlightened. The information she shared with me was far more than I expected and not the interaction I had prepared for all this time. After all we had been through, a part of me felt let down that there wasn’t a violent exchange to decide the outcome of this place —a strange, twisted feeling to find yourself in. Perhaps we had been through enough and deserved an exchange of words or an explanation. We got it either way, so I should be happy. Should be. Was it something she said? Something I didn’t? The time I spent here made me feel more distant than I already did. The latter part of nine months was mine alone, and to some extent, there was a joy to be found in it. My prison had become home. All this progress wouldn’t have been made without that forced loneliness. Far away from prying eyes and others’ expectations, I found myself in the void. For so long, I had learned to live for others. Wake up so I can spend time with Maleki. Help Grandmother with her flowers. Getting better was for my family, not for me. You can lose an arm and still be happy. The weight of my family’s wishes and sadness made me mirror what they felt.

Going down was faster, easier to stumble, but faster nonetheless. I had reached the first limb quickly. The limb was like the rest, but green veins embedded in the bark stretched out from where I stood far into the most distant part of the branch. Dark green vines coiled and squeezed the bark all around me, but these veins were different. A light green luminescence emitted from them, carrying out as far they could be seen. A beautiful guideline that perfectly pathed me to my destination. This light and coloration could be seen from the ground, and I remembered seeing it, Khronos’ vision of this place from before the fruit was eaten. The tree at that time was full of colour, starting from the base of the trunk and following up the tree in small sections, one for each color represented. Now, though, only two colors could be tracked — a soft purple, almost violet in hue, and a lighter green. The context Ananke and Khronos provided, combined with what I can see with my own two eyes, tells me that this energy is emitted from the fruit. Flowing out of it and into the tree, giving it power over The Garden and the surrounding environment.

This was the highest vertical branch; the remaining ones above me all stretched out to the highest point of the crown. The limb itself was a road dedicated solely to me at this moment, yet I found myself trapped in the middlemost point, equidistant from the sides. I strode forward, and even where there were juts or palpitations in the bark, climbing or hopping over them was much preferred instead of moving aside. Avoiding the sides was pivotal to my clumsy nature. I had made it up here consuming whatever good luck I had built up throughout my life. However, the scales were much in my favour, considering the amount of bad luck I had already used up. Tripping over a small divot was not in my plans, and at least from this distance, landing flat would still grant me the grace of an extra person’s length before the edge. The walk was quiet. My only friend the breeze that glanced between the limbs, branches, and twigs. The tree’s sway was melodic and didn’t impact my ability to walk too much. I had grown used to it during the climb, though its effects were limited at the thickest part of the tree. Only when you got to the outer edge of the branches towards the edge of the crown could you see and feel the movement. A tree of this size would be difficult to move by simple winds; a much larger storm would be needed to move the branches in an impactful way.

There was a grove up ahead where the branch twisted over itself and formed a nook, sub-branches, and twigs masking the area mostly from view. What it was hiding was no mystery because the green veins pulsed slowly with a solemn hum. I was close to the fruit. It must be hidden in this culvert. As I neared the area, the humming and pulsing grew louder. My good arm pushed large leaves away from me so that I could enter. A surprising view took my eyes. This place was lush, and water trickled down the sides of the sub-branches. An oasis so far up surprised me — it shouldn’t have, considering all I had seen thus far, but it was odd to find myself in more beautiful places continuously. Grandma would love it here; this place would be all she ever dreamed about. It was Grandpa’s simple nature that kept her at bay. I had a subtle feeling she might have been a flower in a different life. The way she cared for nature and all its creatures was like the stories you hear of mother nature itself. What is her majik, I wonder? I had learned much but hardly ever seen majik be used with my own eyes. That is a twisted way to learn about your world. I might be the only mortal on this planet with all this knowledge — libraries and historians would even be jealous of me. However, when it comes to majik, I was a simpleton. Our whole world depends on it, and its existence has been a mystery to me for most of my life.

What did I really know of my family, excluding Maleki? Based on Kallen’s info, it could be inferred that they were life and end maji, but what does that even mean? Their faces became harder to see each day, and it was only until these dreams that their appearance arrived back in my mind. Dreams. That is what Ananke called them. She spoke of them with such regard. I appreciated them and what they had done for me on this journey alone, but something must be missing. Not all the dreams were joyous; some snuck fear into my heart. A place that was also filled with deep regrets and made you wake up in a deep sweat. I should ask her about that if I ever come across her again.

Stolen story; please report.

The last strand of vein circled the culvert and into a single small branch. A tree within a tree — this one was smaller, almost normal in size. Hanging over the edge of the abyss was the forbidden fruit. At first, it looked perfectly normal as far as fruit goes. A thought rose in my mind that this was all a test or that I had dreamed it up, and I was still in a coma at the foot of The Garden’s door. Then I looked down, and vertigo filled my body like a sickness, returning me to a clear train of thought. The fruit, an apple with a round bottom and curve in the middle, was colored a beautiful green with white streaks that looked like paint strokes. The stem was attached to the branch, the green veins flowing into it as it hung over the air. Reaching it would be impossible from the edges, especially at my short height. I could try to climb the tree to the stretched-out branch, squeezing the branch from an upside-down position like a worm until I got to the fruit. However, this would be difficult with only one arm since I would need to pluck the fruit and hang on with my feet somehow. That fruit was attached securely from the look of it, too, so it would take a good strong tug to come loose. Instead, I measured the void with my eyes. It was six or seven feet in diameter. Short enough to jump over in theory, but too tall to reach up on my tippy toes and grab the fruit. I exited the area and found a flat portion of this limb to practice. Stepping out from a lump in the bark, I paced out seven steps just to be safe and marked the spot with a piece I tore out from a leaf that hung from one of the twigs. I had one shot at the jump, or I would be meeting a swift end at the bottom of the soft grassy floor of The Garden. Practicing here was safe, and I could get the motions right before the jump. The jump wasn’t that far, really. Maleki would make it on the first try if he were here. My body had improved, but this was foreign to me, even with all the climbing I had done. Different muscles and movements were required to get this right, and I’ve barely been able to use both my legs at the same time most of my life, so this was needed.

On the first jump, the idea was there. My heels landed first and rammed into the surface, forcing me to stumble back hard onto my rear. My good arm waved in a circular motion to my side to prevent me from falling like I was standing on a log in the water. A useless motion, but it helped me realize part of the problem. My dead arm was causing me to lose air as it flopped behind me during the jump, but this wasn’t enough to break the jump. The landing part was the issue because I had no way to balance myself out right near the end. This meant I had to jump further and fall forward, or I had to jump perfectly and stay balanced. Pulling myself up over the edge would be nigh impossible. Of course, I could go to sleep and let one of my legs go limp so that both my arms worked, but that would make the jump itself much harder. I would have to get a running start, leap forward — grab the apple in midair — then make it to the other and stick the landing while being thousands of feet above the ground. Easy enough…

Hour after hour, I performed the jump, slowly building confidence and skill. I approached this methodically, attempting new ideas every few attempts and tracking the results after every ten jumps. My arms and legs were already cut and bruised from landing wrong and scraping against the bark. I sat with my results and thought about the idea as a whole to ensure there weren’t any ideas missed. With a complete running start, the jump was doable, landing perfectly on the bridge of my feet and then falling forward in a teeter-totter motion onto my knees. After this break, I would test a few more times and then go for it. No regrets. I won’t live long enough to have them if I fail anyway.

Ten more jumps, and eight of them all landed perfectly. Two of them I made, though not so gracefully. It was time to put my efforts to the test, so I pushed through to the oasis and placed my bag against the bag. Part of me wondered if I should bring my bladed disc, but it would weigh me down and be too sharp to practice jumping with. The other part of me wanted to just try throwing the thing at the fruit, but there’s no telling what would happen when it hit the ground, and I wasn’t accurate enough to try it. I liked this method the best because my options seemed sure; I either fell to my death, grabbed the apple, and fell to my death, or made it to the other side with the apple in my hand. Three deep, relaxing breaths calmed my mind before the acrobatic act that came next. See you at the bottom, Maleki.

I backed all the way to the edge of the oasis, where the air opened up towards the crown, and with a running start, I took three steps and pressed hard on the last possible place. Lurching high, my palm placed out towards the heavens, I guided my fingers across the fruit, clutching hard once it fully entered my palm. My weight and body pushed past the branch that hovered over the ravine, and combined with my arm, it was enough force to unlatch the apple. My eyes stayed forward, the other side consuming my mind. My leg was outstretched in front of me, the right leg lagging behind from that last push-off. As it caught up, the edge of the limb was two feet away, and I prepared my feet to brace the landing. The timing was off from the pluck of the apple. Instead of undershooting the jump and falling to my impending death, I had overshot it.

The extra air time forced me to land on my shins, falling face-first into the thick, hardened bark. My forehead had collided hard, and I was too dizzy to fully realize what I had accomplished. I went to rub the headache away and felt only the cold, soft touch of the apple’s outer layer of skin. I did it!